"
"We must get somebody to take up your cause. I shall do all in my
power to make the Oberburgermeister put in a good word for you."
"Would you yourself do what you are advising me to do?"
Schrotter was silent for a moment.
"I am not in the same case. If Berlin were as much a necessity to me
as it is to you I would do it--most certainly."
Wilhelm looked as if he were swallowing a bitter draught. But
Schrotter's strong hand lay tenderly on the dark head.
"Yes, friend Eynhardt," he said; "you will send in the petition, and
it will, I hope, have the desired result. Do it for my sake. Yes,
look at me; I have need of you. I miss you. I am getting to be an
old man. At sixty years of age one does not make new friendships.
All the more carefully does one keep those one has. Berlin has
seemed to me a desert--almost unbearable, without you. You do not
know how impossible things have become there. They are misusing,
without one pang of conscience, the most touching and lovable
characteristic of our people--its sense of gratitude, which it
exaggerates to the point of weakness. They are doing all they can to
bind Germany hand and foot, to gag her and drag her back into
absolutism before her sentimentality will allow her to put herself
on the defensive.
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